The director of the ceremony was not Chinese. He doesn't know about Chinese phoenix. In Egypt and in Greece, it was the symbol of Sun God Ra.

Ancient Chinese people worshipped God(Shang Di). It' s only Qin Shi Huang, the first wild Chinese Emperor who adopted the dragon as a sacred symbol of Chinese people. Before the dragon was not the sacred symbol of Chinese people.

The dragon means 'evil' or 'satan' in Bible.

I hope Chinese people gets back to christianity like their ancient ancestors.

Well-manicured display of robbed colonial treasure during nearly five centuries old wealth was excellent. And few drops in ocean or peanut like fund for African children is the display of advanced cultured civilized humanity is a naked bankruptcy through the advice of Oxfam another data gathering society. Developing countries as a whole expected more than GB-immigration!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well-manicured display of robbed colonial treasure during nearly five centuries old wealth was excellent. And few drops in ocean or peanut like fund for African children is the display of advanced cultured civilized humanity is a naked bankruptcy through the advice of Oxfam another data gathering society. Developing countries as a whole expected more than GB-immigration!!!!!!!!!!!!

Watched every minute of it: a brilliant closing ceremony. The only thing I would have done different would have been to save the Eric Idle bit for the last. You listen to/watch all the other performances, and it just seemed to be the one the crowd was into the most and it left you with the best feeling.

For the first time in olympics, we saw 'the phoenix' above the olympic torch yesterday.

the phoenix was identified by the Egyptians as a stork or heron-like bird called a benu, known from the Book of the Dead and other Egyptian texts as one of the sacred symbols of worship at Heliopolis, closely associated with the rising sun and the Egyptian sun-god Ra.

And at Olympic Torch Lighting ceremony in Greece, the priestess prayed also to 'Apollo' who is sun-god.